Anna Mazzola (is away)
@Anna_Mazz
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Writer. Very small. The Clockwork Girl, The House of Whispers, The Book of Secrets etc. History, mystery, crime. See @anna_mazz_law for lawyer me.
Camberwell, London
Joined March 2011
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The raccoons are returning to the libraries. Nature is healing.
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A friend told me an amazing story over the weekend of how she’d been with a group of mostly young people, discussing the most famous person they’d shagged.
When they got to the very end of the table, a woman in her 70s looked up and said quietly: ‘Elvis’.
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Good morning. Here is a bat eating watermelon in bed.
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It's 45 years since the best ever account of an attempted crime.
From the Edinburgh Evening News, 18 August 1978.
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Good evening from Britain where the police have banned milkshakes but not fascist marches and where the resistance is now apparently being led by a burger company.
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Sometimes I worry that I’m too tired and busy to deal properly with emails and requests and then I remember Nancy Mitford just sent out cards like this:
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The only good thing I have for you today are these: octopus eggs.
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A tiny devil caught in a prism of glass. 17th century. By 1720 it was in the Treasury in Vienna and was described as a ‘spiritus familiaris that was driven out of one possessed and banned to this glass’. Now at the Kunsthistorisches Museum Collection, Vienna.
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To copyright their look, clowns can submit their likeness to the Clowns International Group where their look will be painted onto an egg. This is then kept in the Clown Egg Register in the Dalston church where Grimaldi the Clown was buried in 1837. I did not make this up.
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My old school want me to talk to their pupils about what being a writer is like. I’ve asked them all to send me the best work they’ve ever done. I’m going to ignore it for two months and then send a short email saying it’s shit.
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Stand down. The best prologue in detective fiction has now been written.
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My daughter just told me that at her school they have a friendship bench. If you feel lonely or sad, you sit on the bench and others come to play or look after you. I think we all need the friendship bench.
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Yesterday my colleague called me a 'book murderer' because I keep weapons in books to do murders with. Does anyone else do this? Is it just me?
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I thought things couldn’t get any worse but my husband has bought himself ‘flip flop socks’ to wear about the house.
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Writer: spends four years writing a book.
Reader:
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Love how they call it ‘rehoming a cat’ and not ‘opening your home to a small lord of darkness who will take over and make you all its slaves.’
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Did you know that when you take a book out of a library the author gets 9p? And that every year the author gets a statement saying that people have been borrowing their books 1000s of times? And that this might just make the author so happy they cry? God bless libraries &
@PLR_UK
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Publisher: so you definitely know what a sea otter looks like?
Illustrator: yes, I once saw one in a nightmare.
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That photo. ‘Yesterday, we travelled because we wanted to. Today, we vote for the women who travelled because they were forced to.’
@lynnenright
for
@thepooluk
#repealtheeighth
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Delighted to learn that the German word for panic-buying is Hamsterkäufe: to shop like a nervous, bulging-cheeked hamster.
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I had forgotten that the plot of Bedknobs and Broomsticks is basically Angela Lansbury teaching herself witchcraft to fight the Nazis. Seems topical.
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Which thing from a book most disappointed you when you experienced it in real life?
Mine: Turkish Delight.
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Man next to me on train won't stop reading what I'm writing so
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As it seems we're all still talking about milkshake, it's time to retweet my favourite Mary Anning cartoon. (Hark! A Vagrant by
@beatonna
).
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Like the rest of you, I’m feeling sick and distressed seeing the images of the war crimes taking place in Ukraine. Here’s something beautiful: St Volodymyr's Cathedral In Kiev.
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Miss Havisham’s Curiosities seem to do a whole range of tea cups for using on work zoom calls.
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Went running in Kennington and thought I’d stumbled upon a cult carrying out a sacrifice, but turns out they’re just bee keepers.
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Wolf moon over Peckham. The first full moon of the decade, coinciding with a lunar eclipse. Called wolf moon by Europeans and Native Americans because of the lupine howling that went on at midwinter. Aroooooo!
#wolfmoon
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‘I write Chapter 1 and then I write on.’ Muriel Spark tells us how to write a book. Iconic.
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‘She died as she lived: crushed beneath the weight of books she still hadn’t managed to read.’
Is This Bookshelf Headboard Aspirational or Does it Stress You Out?
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Last minute contender for Tweet of the year.
Happy New Year!
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My friend’s 11-year-old told her tonight that ‘reading is the closest thing we have as humans to magic.’ I’ve filed a petition to adopt.
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You’ve probably seen the guillotine earrings of the French Revolution, but I’ve just read that women sometimes wore a thin, red ribbon around the throat to simulate the cut of the guillotine. Which is nice.
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@theamycoop
This is extraordinary. We need to find Narwhal Man and knight him. Ideally using a narwhal tusk. Sounds like you also need a medal of some kind. Hope you're ok.
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Oh, nothing. Just thinking about the penis of this statue in Père Lachaise cemetery, glowing gold from thousands of women rubbing it over the years for good luck, or maybe just fun.
Oh, nothing. Just thinking about this carving of a dog, glowing gold from unknown thousands of pats from loving hands, over four and half centuries.
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Gave a talk at my daughter’s school this morning.
Teacher: ‘Who knows what an author is?’
5yo: ‘It’s someone poor and sad who has no mummy and daddy.’
Close.
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The Memento Mori Watch that Mary Queen of Scots gave to her attendant, Mary Seaton, on the night before her execution in 1587. The quotation translates as 'Pale death visits with impartial foot the cottages of the poor and castles of the rich’ (Horace). Via Stephen Ellcock on FB.
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How I read.
(Leslie Caron in An American in Paris, 1951).
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Blimey. The
@FT
pulling no punches in their review of the worst business people of the year.
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@saladinahmed
Has anyone mentioned this delectable example yet? ‘Mariye passed her time in the storage shed thinking about her budding breasts.’ No she didn’t, Murakami. Via
@wirewalking
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The amazing Barter Books, Alnwick: a huge secondhand bookshop in a Victorian train station. A model train runs along the top of the book shelves, the cafe is in a Victorian boiler room, dogs are welcome, and there’s an ice cream parlour. I don’t know what more you want.
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Hello, lovelies. Sorry I've been a bit cryptic recently. The bad news is I have a brain tumour that's killed my hearing nerve and may take out my facial nerve. The good news is it prob isn't cancerous and they're going to gamma knife it with radiation. Hopefully that will stop it
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I’ve stumbled across the work of a 17th century French painter who for some reason depicted what humans might have looked like if they’d evolved from different animals. THE OWL MAN.
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I challenge you to find a more glorious Medieval bat. (You won’t)
Psalter, England c. 1360-1400
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They say 'listen to your body', but at this time of year my body just wants to lie in bed eating buttered crumpets.
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Told my 8-year-old my writing wasn't going all that well and he advised me to use more 'Wow Words'. Apparently these are 'long and impressive words' like DAZZLING and IRIDESCENT which will make everyone want to read my stories. Thought I'd pass on the tip.
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Note she’s in mourning gear, the 19th century equivalent of a woman wearing headphones.
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The smallest library in Italy. For over twenty years, a retired school teacher has been taking his ‘Bibliomotocarro’ of books to children in villages in Southern Italy.
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Give a man a book and you feed his mind for a day. Teach a man to write books and he makes almost no money for an entire lifetime.
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My mum has started commenting on my social media posts. I’m not sure she’s realised we have the same surname.
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Can we talk about the willies on the Bayeux tapestry? Loads of them, yet not a mention in the audio guide or museum. I do hope this was the needlewomen having a laugh.
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Just found out that Japan has a beloved mascot called Gudetama, born of the same family as Hello Kitty. Gudetama is a tired and unmotivated raw egg whose catch phrases include ‘I don’t want to do anything’ and ‘Can I go home now?’ Never have I so identified with an egg.
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@TheDailyShow
@jordanklepper
‘So you’re pro-life?’
‘Of course!’
‘It’s important for Americans to do whatever they can can to protect human life?’
‘Of course!’
‘Why aren’t you wearing a mask?’
‘Well, it’s a personal choice.’
Outstanding.
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Can’t believe I forgot to make the lemon piglets.
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Day 1 plan for Victorian home-schooling my children:
7am - Prayers and scripture
8am - Morning drill
10 - Canings and hymns
Midday - Gruel
1 - 4pm - Chanting times tables while wearing a dunce’s cap
5 -9pm - Chimney-sweeping
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‘He has vanished; he is the slippery stones underfoot, he is the last ripple in the wake of himself.’
The final paragraph of Hilary Mantel’s The Mirror and the Light.
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Couldn’t sleep due to the covid so wrote a poem about government messaging. Normal.
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Authors still dutifully plugging their books during a pandemic.
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Queen Victoria died on 22 Jan 1901 and it was a total nightmare because no one could remember how to bury a monarch, she’d demanded a fancy purple and white funeral, they all fell out and the undertaker forgot the coffin.
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I hope this email finds you well in these strange times. I hope this email finds you strong and fierce in these tormented and torrid times. I hope this email finds you lying on a bed of leaves in an enchanted forest, watching stars shoot through the inky sky.
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I'm helping my children understand the British electoral system by making them choose their Christmas presents from a handful of things they really don't like while shouting false information at them.
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Haven't done any xmas shopping or prep yet but am assuming that if I just shout GET CHRISTMAS DONE repeatedly everything will fall into place.
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Meanwhile Margaret Atwood used to make her agent respond to journalists she didn’t want to talk to with a picture of her as a skeleton and a message saying, ‘Sorry I can’t do it because I’m dead.’
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Imagine if your nation’s political scandals were about your PM being too damn sexy and cool.
Finland’s Prime Minister
@MarinSanna
is in the headlines after a video of her partying was leaked today.
She has previously been criticized for attending too many music festivals & spending too much on partying instead of ruling.
The critics say it’s not fitting for a PM.
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Welcome to your forties. You will spend hours making convoluted plans to see people, but then be too tired to meet them. You will remember the lyrics to songs from your twenties, but not where you left the car keys. Hangovers will nearly destroy you, but yet you drink on.
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Meanwhile in Modena, locals turn on taps to find them spouting pink Lambrusco after ‘malfunction at winery’ or possibly the work of the lord.
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I’d forgotten how how great it is when you do a joke tweet and then some random called Dave takes your post literally and starts yelling at you because his wife left him last year so he has no one else to yell at except the wall.
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Day 1 of the nation home-schooling its children and here are the wine shelves in Sainsbury’s.
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Five glorious floors of books at
@ScrivenersBooks
in Buxton. Could have stayed there for days but my kids grew hungry and irascible after 9 hours. Amazing collection of rare and secondhand books. Came away with a signed first edition Kate Atkinson.
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Not supposed to be on social media but just found the best debut novel announcement of all time.
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Recently I and another writer were asked for our top writing tip. We both said READ. As much and as widely as you can. Guy asking the question was horrified. Told us he didn’t have time to read books; didn’t like reading books. My man: you can’t learn to write without reading.
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How to write historical fiction:
1 Find killer concept
2 Research for 2 years
3 Start writing
4 Realise writing is hard
5 Research more about wallpaper in 1644
6 Discover that while you’ve been researching someone else has written your book
7 Find new concept
8 Return to stage 2.
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I see everyone is posting their achievements of the year, so I'd like you all to know that I have achieved nothing of real meaning, but I have acquired several nice jumpers AND overfed my cat.
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Went to the doctor about why I feel so tired all the time and I'm afraid his diagnosis is that I have kids.
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@IanDunt
It is almost entirely your fault that I have written a poem. Made up of British tabloid headlines.
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I have deleted
myself
from the WhatsApp group
you created
and which
you didn't ask
if I wanted
to join.
Forgive me
it was tedious
and this life
is too short.
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In 1992 a judge found that Woody Allen’s behaviour towards his 7-year-old step daughter was ‘grossly inappropriate’ and that measures should be taken to protect her. In 2020 Hachette decide to publish his memoirs.
#littlebrownwalkout
75 plus employees of Hachette are standing in solidarity with
@ronanfarrow
,
@realdylanfarrow
and survivors of sexual assault and walked out of the Hachette offices today in protest of Woody Allen’s memoir.
#HachetteWalkout
#LittleBrownWalkout
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When you’re dead, but still cute and you’ve got to put it on insta.
(16th century cadaver monument by Ligier Richier. He’s actually holding his heart).
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Writing tip: do not write a novel. It takes a really fucken long time. Bake a cake instead or something.
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On behalf of Victorianists everywhere, please can we have a moratorium on calling Rees-Mogg ‘Victorian’? He is not Victorian. He is just a cunt.
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Any publisher who does take on Matt Hancock’s book should make clear that the advance is in the form of clapping and not actual money
As we told the Mail before it ran its story about HarperCollins and Matt Hancock, we have no knowledge of such a book and are not in talks. The story is incorrect.
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Writing tip: write a book that will make you a lot of money in various different countries and ideally be turned into a movie or TV show.
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I increasingly think that succeeding as a writer is less about talent and more about somehow finding a way of carrying on writing despite the knocks and setbacks and disappointments. Maybe the same is true of any creative endeavour. We all have to be persistent maniacs.
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Happy brain news! The gamma knife treatment seems to have stalled the meningioma (tumour on the lining of my brain). The neurosurgeons won't be sure for another 2 years, but it looks like they've stopped it growing and even reduced it slightly. Before and after pics below.
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By accident, I discovered that Tewkesbury Abbey have commissioned the knitting of 900 tiny monks to commemorate their 900th anniversary. Am now fairly convinced they will be brought to life by an ancient spirit and destroy us all. Perhaps it's for the best.
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I see we are still discussing whether to tag authors in tweets, so here's how I see it:
1 If you're telling us you like our books, tag us at once. It makes us feel warm inside.
2 If you're telling us we're talentless twats, please do not tag us. We can tell ourselves that anytime
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Joan Lindsay wrote Picnic at Hanging Rock in four weeks when she was 70 years old. (For anyone currently feeling too old or too short of time to write a book).
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That would also be my expression if I had six kids and a dog to look after.
(Lavinia Fontana, Portrait of the Maselli family, c 1605)
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Descriptive terms that are only ever applied to women:
Feisty
Bossy
Pushy
Fierce.
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Shirley Jackson responds to the 1950s version of being tagged in a bad review.
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'Ancient stone circle' in Scotland turns out to have been built in the '90s by a man called Dave.
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